Hollywood Global Inc.

During the 90's, service industries in the west actually figured a new way of effective cost cutting. Move East! India was the preferred destination. Currency conversion was convenient. Lots of English speaking people to choose from. And Cheap Labour. They don't expect all the kinds of benefits that employees in the western world have come to take for granted. Per hour payment is not really the scene here. Pay Rs.20K a month, and a graduate will be happy to slog his ass for the whole month. So many back offices mushroomed in India that it was a waste of intelligence. get good money but your brains rust, your biorhythms go haywire and you don't enjoy Indian holidays. It was work work work.
But the boom has now stabilised. Now there is a different kind of industry that wants to hold Indian hands and stir us all up. That's the film industry. Hollywood is now reaching out to the talent that is latent in India. The hardworking geeks can now work a little harder and enter into the vfx industry in India and end up working for the greats of the movie industry. So strange! Be American but buy global had become the mantra in everything but movies. But now even movies have been included in this net. It is good for the artists working in the Indian vfx companies, for they get to work on movies like Transformers, Harry Potter, Xmen and many other movies that are more legends than movies. Definitely the western VFX companies also get to profit due to this as they get cheap labour. Artists in the west need to learn more and upgrade his/her skills more often than not if they have to survive in this industry. But do they?
What is the kind of work that gets sent to India? Is it the character layout? character designs? Nopes. The stuff that gets sent here is mostly not creation. We simply follow orders. It is just cheap labour for the VFX industry.
We do the stuff that requires great detailing and hard work. Lots of man hours.
But what about our local movies? Why don't we work in those? Why don't big companies like R&H India, MPC Bangalore work for the local film industry? Reliance, TATA, Prime Focus India, Red Chillies and a few others do work for Indian movie industry. But the quality is just about ok or else American VFX companies have a big hand in creating the most innovative parts of it like layout, character design. The concepts are not so fresh. Though the Telugu and Tamil film industries are getting innovative with their VFX movies, the ideas seem to be somewhat stale. I wonder when Indian cinema will get a movie get its own home made Avatar, concepts that are created and worked for by Indian artists who are many and much more talented than the Indian film industry gives it credit for.

Getting back

Writing...once I considered it to be an integral part of me. I never thought I would part from writing. Its so strange that I had. I had parted with writing so much that i felt a foreigner if i had to write something. Anything at all. It was weird. I would sometimes read stuff that I had written earlier and actually wonder how i wrote all those things. Now, when I have to write something, it no longer flows. My synapses seem to be lagging. I make a nice comment and I am surprised I can do that even now. Its like some old sluggish machine that was once zipping away,amoothly and instinctively, but suddenly crashed and blued out. Now when I am trying to resurface and write a bit, I feel like I am doing something that was once vaguely familiar, yet vaguely fascinating. I cant believe my relationship to something that I thought would never break has now splintered. reforming and growth are so surprisingly reluctant, painful and long thought out that they feel deliberate...
Instinct has now dwindled to.......de..deli.....deliber.....deliberate....

Guess thats how animals became wild for us and civilization means a bunch of concrete buildings, malls and yea...cell phones....but now i am wandering....in the jungles of my weird, patched up existence that believes that if i stick around, then i grow cobwebs and start rusting....but well, i Didn't stick to writing and look! here I am dawdling around with words and trying to be witty and s-s-stumbling around with my thoughts and narration after quitting writing and now getting back to it after ages...

Coffeeeeeeeeeee and...........

The smell of this amazing brew is what I would love to wake up with. Ground coffee beans and hot water simmering off and giving me the blessed filter of pure coffee! Aaaah! Divine bliss! Add a bit of cream and a spoon of sugar and sip it....hmmmmm!!! Amazing!
Coupled with a nice lovely novel, an overstuffed chair, a log fire, a fat cat dozing at my feet and I am in wonderland! O! And it should be raining or snowing outside.
One day....I will make this a reality!

Hmmm....

United we win, divided we fall.
In unity, we dividedly believe.
The chinks in the armour - inevitable.
A divided unity,
Thats uniformly divided
is an existence we have to live with
Being an Indian later,
but first a Tamilian, Malayali, marwadi or whatever first.
Sometimes its soothing,
but some other times,
I just want to be
I am an Indian.
I love chaat, masalas, avial, parathas, wada pav
I love the beach, the sun and the sand,
I love the smell of Coffee and spices, the beautiful sunrises,
the breathtakingly colourful sunsets, the vastness and wonders of nature
that make me feel proud to be a human being first
and then an Earthling
:-)

Hyderabad Blues

This is my second day in Hyderabad. The Telegana issue is burning...according to media and various news channels, literally as well as figuratively. Thankfully I cannot see those amazing footages since I don't have television access now. But life here in Hyderabad is just another day in the calendar. We don't plan for cinemas and outings but well, it is after all, a weekday. A bloody tuesday for all that! So finish work at office and simply vanish behind closed doors and enjoy the company of your friends, fones and laptops. (After all, this is the age of super communication!)
The issue is that 83 MLA's and 11 MP's have resigned. So the city is having an official 'bandh'. But well, its actually the governing office (I dont presume to be politically aware) thats to be closed. Why the city?
Why can't life be as usual? The issue has been a 'burning' issue for years on end. it has come to the fore in the past few years.

So....why is the news media scaring people about violence? Why are the politicians scaring the junta outside the state that there is going to be violence? For, the general junta over here are as relaxed and unconcerned about it as ever when a bandh is announced. the issue maybe sensitive in their hearts, but their actions belie the fact. It is only very few who have their offices closed for the span of 2 days ( and I am completely jealous of them!) and maybe the schools are not running. there is no availability of petrol so auto wallahs quote any number that comes to their mind.

Sigh! I wish my office was closed! I would have slept till late. Had a game of carom, read some books, etc with my room mates friends....but well...!
Hyderabad Blues indeed!